14 April 2014
Coldspring to Kountze, TX
65 miles (Total Miles = 1,855)

“Small problem!” I yell to Gina, as we’re riding along trying to negotiate the map, “I can’t see!”. This is because my eyes are filling with water, along with my glasses, mirror, jacket, booties, and probably my pannier too. The rain has caught us and it ain’t no Seattle rain, just drizzling down beneath grey skies. Nope, this is a Texas deluge, bigger and better and served up with a side of thunder and lightning. The only reason we’re not calling Paul for a ride or sticking our thumbs out for a friendly Ford Tough driver is because we’re only a few miles from today’s destination. If we can find it, that is, since we nearly need a periscope to see through all this water.

It’s our 19th and final night in Texas and we are now happily spending it indoors at the lovely Relax Inn, and by lovely I mean that the room has a shower and heat and doesn’t smell like cigarette smoke, which we’re guessing if we’d arrived just a month or two ago, it would have. Every surface resembling any part of a hook or hanger has a wet item of clothing dangling from it. About half of the group has checked in here, while the other half is tucked inside a church just down the road. It’s still thundering as I type this, so we have our pruney fingers crossed that the storms will move on through while we’re cozy indoors, making our foray tomorrow into our fifth state – Louisiana – a dry and pleasant one.